Friday, August 31, 2012

Sticky Fingers! $30 Million in Maple Syrup Stolen in Quebec

The headline is from Minyanville, the story is from the Globe and Mail:

Police probing Quebec maple syrup heist worth up to $30-million

Quebec police are on the hunt for a sticky-fingered
thief after millions of dollars of maple syrup vanished from a Quebec
warehouse.

The theft was discovered during a routine
inventory check last week at the St-Louis-de-Blandford warehouse, where
the syrup is being held temporarily. The Federation of Quebec Maple
Syrup Producers, which is responsible for the global strategic maple
syrup reserve, initially kept the news quiet, hoping it would help
police solve the crime quickly.

About 10 million pounds of syrup was stored at the site, at a value of more than $30-million.

Anne-Marie
Granger Godbout, executive director of the federation, said the
organization is still trying to determine how much is missing and
declined to offer an estimate. But a spokesman from the Sureté du Québec
said the loss was significant.

“We know that it’s millions of dollars that was stolen,” said Sergeant Richard Gagné. “It’s a very large amount.”

All of the maple syrup inventories are fully insured, according to the federation, so there will be no loss to producers.

Ms.
Granger Godbout said the theft shouldn’t put the global supply of maple
syrup at risk, but warned it could allow the thief to undercut
legitimate producers. The federation represents about 10,000 maple syrup
producers in Quebec. “Obviously those people stole the maple syrup to
sell it somewhere,” she said. “If it’s a big volume, it could be very
harmful for the maple syrup industry. The companies that are working in
this industry will have to compete with some company that didn’t pay for
the maple syrup.”...MORE